Silent Contemplation
by ArtificialAngel
Summary: In the rush that is the evacuation, a single girl is trapped on the island with the British schoolboys. Though a bit shy, how will her presence affect the events that take place?


**Disclaimer:** I do not own William Golding's Lord of the Flies. I've simply decided to manipulate the characters from said book as I please.

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It all began on a Tuesday. Sitting in school, an announcement was made. We were all to return home as soon as possible. If we couldn't get a hold of our parents, we were supposed to go home with another family. They didn't specify why all this was happening. They just said it was very important.

Being in eighth grade, I simply took off and walked home. Amidst all the chaos, my teacher didn't seem to be keeping track of us. Whatever was going on, it must have been really horrible. And yet I couldn't think of what this all might be about. There was a war, yes, but in the outskirts of London, what could happen? The fighting was far, far away from here.

I stepped in the door minutes before my father got home. Everything was made clear when I turned the television on. None of the stations were showing their scheduled programs, but some channels gave details. We had gotten news that an atom bomb was planned to be dropped on England within the next few hours. London was an expected target, so they were evacuating the area. After listening to what seemed to be everything, I took a deep breath. Things made sense now. The reason they sent us home was so, if we couldn't get a ride to the airport, we would die with our families. Lovely.

My father then arrived. "Dad!"

He noticed that I had the television on. "You know?"

"Yes. Any word from Mum?"

He nodded. "She's staying close to where she is, since there's that smaller airport nearby." My mother had a job at a building located about an hour and a half away.

"That's good." Oh, so much was going through my head. What if I would never see my own mum again? "I can't believe they're involving the innocent in this. That's so bloody-"

"She said she loves you, and that she's sorry she forgot to wake you this morning." Tears began to sting my eyes. Like any of that mattered now. Crying wouldn't help anything, though. We had to get out of here. I rubbed at my eyes and then got up to throw some things in a bag.

Nearly forty minutes later my father and I left for the airport, each with one bag full of as much as we could carry. Mine just had some extra clothes, a bit of food to eat on the plane and some small things I couldn't bear to leave home: a favorite book, a few photographs and a stuffed animal I'd had for as long as I could remember.

It was when we were leaving that I first looked at the house in the way that was expected. I took my last good look at it, even though everything still felt surreal. Was it really possible that I'd never see this house intact again? That it would be completely destroyed? I moved my backpack from one shoulder to the other. Of course it was possible. But it would only seem real when I saw the pictures of London's ruins. How I wished that day would never come. My father and I got into the car and left for the airport.

Traffic wasn't as bad as you would think it would be. In the panic that people felt, they drove cautiously. I guessed that was because they knew that if they got into an accident, no one would bother to help them. Every living soul in London was heading for an airport. During the ride I simply rested my head on the window, still trying to take everything in. I said little, as did my father. What was there to say? We were lost in thoughts of what our lives had been before that day.

I knew once we approached how bad it was going to get. Already I could hear the yelling. When we walked inside, there were tons of people and a man standing on something in front of them all. His head and arms could barely be seen above the crowd. "I repeat: could any children below the age of sixteen please come to the front?! No infants!"

In the instant that sentence was over my father grabbed me and started to push through the crowd. Some bothered to move, seeing that I was supposed to be up there, but others elbowed, not wanting to give up their spot. Using one hand to hold down my skirt and simply clinging onto my father with the other, we made it to the front. By the time we got up there, though, it was too late. There had been two lines, one with boys and one with girls. They were apparently being loaded onto separate planes. The man who had been directing the girls' line yelled something out. From what I caught, I believed it to be along the lines of, "The plane's full. Stall them while we get another ready!"

I glanced up at the man on the chair, then back to my father. "Should I...?" He didn't respond. He just pushed me into the back of the boys' line. The man on the chair, if he noticed, didn't say anything. I looked back one last time at my father. He mouthed I love you and smiled. I nodded and did the same, then turned around and jogged to catch up with the number of boys in front of me. After passing up a fat boy who seemed to be catching his breath, I walked alongside of number of little ones. Ahead of me I could see a group of boys clad in black cloaks. Behind me I saw no one but the fat boy, a few more little ones and a pair of twins. I saw one more boy, one that looked to be about my age with fair hair, emerge from the crowd and join the rest of us. It was after that I didn't look back again.

I ended up in a seat close to the front. The boy sitting next to me was a member of the group whom I had come to realize were choirboys from listening to pieces of their conversations. I caught his name, Harold, when another boy yelled out to him, but we didn't speak a word to each other. In a number of hours we would be in a foreign country, far from England. I wasn't even sure where we were exactly going. But at that time I didn't care. I was tired, and I knew that if I kept going over what had happened in my head I'd burst into tears. Never in front of these boys would I appear so vulnerable. After we took off I rested my head against the window of the plane and fell asleep, wondering if my father had made it onto a plane and if my mother had even made it to an airport.

I woke up hours later. Nothing had seemed to change, other than that it had started to rain. The boys still talked. I thought I heard one boy crying near the back of the plane. "Could you please get up? I need to use the loo." Harold looked back at me, apparently realized I was awake and got up. I walked out into the aisle and took a look around. At the front of the plane were several boys and a man sitting with a megaphone on his lap, looking bored. It seemed I was the only girl. Though a bit embarrassed, I tried to block the idea out of my mind. It didn't matter. We'd be landing soon enough, and hopefully I wouldn't have to stay with them for very long.

After using the loo, I went back to my seat. The view from the window wasn't much. From what I could see, it was all water. I wondered where we were going. Crossing an ocean, what were the possibilities? Australia and the U.S. seemed most likely.

Minutes later, a voice spoke out through the speakers in the plane. "Boys," he said, proving that I wasn't supposed to be there, "this is your pilot speaking. I've just received word from the airport that we're flying to. It seems the atom bomb hit London around an hour ago. Anyone that was still in the city is presumed dead." The reassuring words I expected didn't come. That pilot was as stricken by this as we were. The boys were silent, other than the ones that were crying. My father was at the airport, though, and my mum had at least been heading to one. They had to be alright.

As night fell, the rain gradually got worse. It started to pound down harder, and there was occasional turbulence. Thunder could be heard in the distance. The boys had started to talk again. They convinced each other, along with themselves that their loved ones were alright. The little ones continued to cry.

Suddenly, the plane jolted, causing me to hit my head on the window and lose my train of thought. Turbulence? No, that was different. It came too quick. I assumed lightning until I heard the sound of another plane. "Are we being attacked?" I asked. Harold stared at me stupidly. Another jolt came, this time from the other side. My shoulder bumped into Harold's. The little ones cried even harder. A few rows up the man with the megaphone, who must have gone to talk to the pilot, came into the passenger cabin. This plane was divided into two parts. At the front, and taking up most of the plane, was the cockpit and some storage area. The back of the plane was the passenger cabin, which wasn't meant to hold many people. There couldn't have been more than fifty of us. In an emergency, if flying at a low altitude, the passenger cabin could be detached from the rest of the plane and dropped. The man started to speak into his megaphone. "Now try not to panic! If things get too bad we'll be-"

A third jolt hit the plane. The man toppled over onto his empty seat and the boy that had been sitting next to him. It was then that the plane started to decrease in altitude. It was quick, but you could tell that the pilot still had control. "We're going to be dropped onto an island! Make sure your seatbelts are buckled!" The man could barely be heard over the cries of the boys. I searched outside of the window for an island, but nothing could be seen. It was dark, and the rain didn't exactly help.

As we continued to descend, a few more jolts followed. One boy screamed that the front of the plane was on fire. Through the darkness, a beach and forest came into view. We were directly over an island. It was then that the cabin was dropped.

The drop wasn't very long, but it was easily the most terrifying part of that horrible day. Gripping onto the seat, I screamed along with the rest of the boys. What ran through my head was simple. _I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die._ The plane hit the ground. Most of the screaming subsided. Those few moments of peace were disrupted when the cabin started to move.

"Quickly, get out!" The man who no longer held the megaphone jumped up and struggled with the door at the front, finally getting it open. He tried to work his way to the back of the cabin, but the older boys got up and ran. I followed Harold in a panic. The cabin was moving fast. Due to the rain, it was being washed into the ocean. I jumped out of the door when I made it to the very front and stumbled out, onto the beach. No looks were taken back.

I blindly ran into the forest, seeking shelter from the rain that had already soaked my clothes and hair. Fighting through the creepers, I eventually collapsed onto a patch of earth. Out of breath, I found the tears that I had been holding in since this morning running down my face. "He-hello?" It seemed I was alone. If I barely made it out and I was near the front of the plane, what about the rest of them? I hugged my knees to my chest and shook with sobs. My backpack had been left in the cabin. Everything I owned was destroyed, other than the clothes on my back. And I was still wearing my school uniform! My parents, though. Surely I still had my parents! Somehow, cold, afraid and crying, I managed to fall asleep.

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Okay, that's the end of the prologue! I know a lot of things concerning the plane were confusing, especially in the book, so I did my best to interpret it. This has been my first published fan-fiction, so I hope you enjoyed it. Next chapter the boys will actually be in it... Poor Harold's useless. xD Review if you like! 


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